Global Voices » Azerbaijan

Armenia: Eurovision Hopefuls

Onnik Krikorian — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:12:24 +0000

Unzipped: Gay Armenia posts the video and lyrics of a song by Armenian rock band Dorians. One of the three most likely contenders to enter this year's Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the blog says that the group is also his favorite to represent Armenia in the international music competition.

Azerbaijan: Qubanin Ag Almasi and Eurovision

Onnik Krikorian — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:58:26 +0000

Gultekin Garadaghly posts a rendition of Qubanin Ag Almasi, an Azerbaijani folk song. The YouTube channel of the young musical video blogger from Baku also features a cover of Drip Drop, her country's 2010 entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as last year's winning Running Scared. Azerbaijan host the international music competition in May.

Azerbaijan: #LightYourFire Eurovision Meme

Onnik Krikorian — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:03:29 +0000

Ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Baku in May, a new Internet Meme has appeared on Twitter. With Azerbaijan known as the Land of Fire, the hashtag for the international singing contest is the same as this year's official motto, #LightYourFire.

Azerbaijan: Eurovision as an Opportunity for Change in the Caucasus

Onnik Krikorian — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:10:01 +0000

Commonspace comments on news that Armenia will participate in this year's Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Despite a still unresolved conflict between the two countries, the site says Azerbaijan should welcome Armenians at the international music competition and Armenians should respond in the same manner.

Georgia: Return of the Meskhetian Turks

Onnik Krikorian — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:45:03 +0000

The repatriation of the Meskhetian Turks to Georgia from Azerbaijan, Russia and Central Asia is not just a priority for the Georgian government, but also an obligation it has had to fulfill to the Council of Europe since becoming a member in 1999. Over 100,000 people were deported by Stalin in 1944, from the Meskheti region of Georgia, among them Hemshin (Muslim Armenians), Kurds, and Karapapakhs. By far the largest group relocated, however, were the Meskhetian Turks.

At least 400,000 Meskhetian Turks now live outside of Georgia, although it has been unclear how many would return in a process that should have officially ended last year, but which might be extended. This has been one of the reasons why the process of resettlement has taken so long, especially as ethnic Armenians now make up the majority population in what is now the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. As a result, in order not to strain inter-ethnic relations, the Georgian government is settling Meskhetian Turks throughout the country.

East of Center recently touched upon the sensitivities surrounding the issue:

Thanks to Stalin’s paranoia, millions of Muslims and members of various non-Slavic ethnic groups in the Soviet Union were forcibly relocated to Central Asia during the ’30s and ’40s. It’s hard to think of any of these communities that has been victimized more often and so thoroughly ignored by the wider world as the Meskhetian Turks. […]

Clearly, however, Georgia is not capable of resettling that large a population anywhere on its territory, much less the underdeveloped Samtskhe-Javakheti region where the Meskhetians originally lived. And then there is the Armenian question, and a large dose of anti-Muslim feeling. […]

Salim Khamdiv of Abastumani village. Khamdiv was 14 when the deportation happened © Temo Bardzimashvili

However, in a two-year application period ending in July 2010, the Georgian government received only 5,841 eligible applications according to the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI). This amounted to just 9,350 individuals. Ahıska Türkleri – Ahıskalılar explains what the Meskhetian Turks hope for:

We want to return our lands from which we were expelled unjustly. As of today, we have been settling down in 2000 different settlements at 9 different countries including USA. We have difficulty in getting citizenship, settlement permission and work permission in the countries where we live. Our culture and language is on the edge of vanishing. We want to return our country as Georgian citizens and to live in our lands from now on.

Osman Mekhriev (left) and Islam Niazov, elders of the Abastumani Meskhetian community, take a break from the holiday prayers during the end of Ramazan celebrations © Temo Bardzimashvili

Last year, Zaka Guluyev's Blog detailed the situation of some of those that have returned, mainly from Azerbaijan, to Samtskhe-Javakheti:

Muslim Arifov and his family has come back to Akhiltskhe three years ago from Saatly, settlement of Azerbaijan. Arifov says that now he feels happy coming back and live in his motherland Georgia. “My parents were unfairly deported from this region. Now I’m happy that I managed to come back and live in my home Georgia with my family.”

Two months ago Muslim’s relative Mehemmed Rehimov also decided to come back with his family from Azerbaijan and to live in his motherland Akhlstkhe. Mehemmed Rehimov says that Georgia seems better place to live in. “It’s very good sense to live in my motherland Georgia. two months already past after my coming to Georgia. I’m happy here with my family and I’m feeling myself very well”.

[…]

Ismayil Moidze, the chairman of the [Vatan Georgian Axhiska Turks] society says that, their organization was expecting more people to apply for returning. But he explains that many families refused to apply because […] many documents are required for applying [for] repatriat status in Georgia. […] That’s why many families decided to stay where they live”.

Rana Rajabova, a 24-year-old bride in the Azerbaijani village of Shirinbeili. Rana's grandparents, natives of the Arali village in Georgia's Adigeni region, were deported to Uzbekistan. Before the deportation they were told by the soldiers that they would return in 7 days, so no belongings should be taken. Her grandmother hid her gold jewelry at home with the hope of returning after a week. Rana's family has applied for the repatriation and says that they do not want to be "refugees." © Temo Bardzimashvili

Georgian Youth | Multiculturality | New Challenges looks at how the new arrivals are reintegrating:

In Samstkhe-Javakheti, the regional association “Toleranti” provides families of repatriated Meskhetians with legal counseling, medical assistance and language support. In the frame of its 3-year project “Provision of humanitarian assistance to repatriate Meskhs and prevention of “self-repatriation”, the association noticeably organizes classes for young repatriated Meskhetians twice a week. Youth who attend the classes hope to improve their chances of success at school, where they receive tuition in Georgian, and to support their integration in the community.

Considering how motivated they are to learn Georgian, and as quickly as possible, this integration is usually 100% successful.

[…]

As many others however, one thing prevents them from totally feeling home in Georgia: they are waiting for an answer to their application for the Georgian citizenship, which they sent two years ago. Without citizenship, they are not fully-fledged citizens in Georgia, and therefore struggle to have access to basic services like medical assistance. They have no choice, though: just like the others, they have to wait […] – this means a life of uncertainty in the long-term…

Portraits of Abdullah Gamidov, his wife Khalida, and her father Zia Chumidze lie on the checkerboard in the Gamidov's house in Kant, Kyrgystan. Zia Chumidze was fighting at the frontline when the deportation happened and never made it home. © Temo Bardzimashvili

Where's Keith comments on the work of Georgian journalist and photographer Temo Bardzimashvili who has been documenting the return of the Mskhetian Turks to Georgia as well as their lives in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. Some of Bardzimashvili's work, “The Unpromised Land – the Meskhetians’ Long Journey Home,” was exhibited in Tbilisi, sponsored by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), and accompanies this post with kind permission.

Delizia Flaccavento also posts photographs of a Meskhetian refugee community in Buffalo, New York, as does Meskhetian Turk Refugees in Atlanta, Georgia (the US State). Meanwhile ECMI says there is a “serious need […] to enhance public awareness on the right of deported persons to return and on the repatriation process […], in particular through the media and the educational system.”

Caucasus: The Year in Review

Onnik Krikorian — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:14:47 +0000

As popular uprisings spread through the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, the Arab Spring also tried to take root in the South Caucasus. However, while opposition forces in the region sought to capitalize on the protests, especially hoping to benefit from international media interest in ‘Facebook Revolutions,' they failed to achieve similar results.

In Armenia, for example, the low use of social media in political activism was particularly evident. With the number of Facebook users standing at just 123,000 at the time, few signed up for the ‘Armenian Revolution of Reform' although, as testimony to the importance of traditional grassroots political activity, around 10,000 people did turn out to protest.

At the same time, in neighboring Azerbaijan, where the use of social media is arguably more evolved than in Armenia despite a slightly lower Facebook penetration rate, thousands signed up for protest actions planned for March. Yet, despite that declared intention to attend, barely more than a hundred youth actually took to the streets and found themselves easily dispersed or detained by police.

Ironically, Facebook and Twitter were better used to report on those detentions in the Azerbaijani capital, and the same was true the following day when another protest action was staged by a traditional opposition party.

There was also criticism of the protests from some bloggers, although demonstrations still continued the following month. By May, however, attention had already turned to Eurovision. With the annual musical competition, launched in Europe in the 1950s, no stranger to controversy in the Caucasus, the event was to become even more interesting when Azerbaijan unexpectedly won.

And, as bloggers turned their attention towards staging the competition in Baku later this year, some activists naturally used the opportunity to raise other more sensitive issues. One of those was the continued incarceration of journalist and prisoner of conscience Eynulla Fatullayev, with Amnesty International especially making renewed calls for his release.

Channel 4 anchor Jon Snow.

The UK's veteran Channel 4 anchorman, Jon Snow, led the campaign launched on Twitter, and two days later the journalist was pardoned and released. However, some online media observers such as Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman questioned whether the micro-blogging site had played as significant a role as it first might have seemed.

Indeed, despite Fatullayev's release, the year was also marked by the arrest of other activists in Azerbaijan such as Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and Jabbar Savalan, allegedly on trumped-up politically motivated charges, although the latter was pardoned just before the end of December.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Georgia, Facebook resulted in the dismissal of a policeman identified through the social media site after the dispersal of striking veterans from the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts. Even so, social media was perhaps better known for ridiculing opposition protesters in May or discussing the visit to Tbilisi by Sharon Stone and the appearance of a Georgian road sign in a Beyoncé video.

But, with more than 700,000 Facebook users in the country, that's not to say there wasn't any political engagement online with the Georgian government particularly active in this area. In fact, with parliamentary elections scheduled for Armenia and Georgia this year and presidential elections in all three countries in 2013, the use of social media will likely become more important as citizens become more engaged.

In Armenia, for example, Facebook has been used to petition the capital's municipality to end the killing of stray dogs and to call for the dismissal of a controversial regional governor. Moreover, while these were genuine grassroots initiatives, there also continues to be substantial funding from the US Government and other international donors, although it remains to be seen to what extent such projects will succeed.

The first test of that will likely be the May parliamentary elections in Armenia, with Georgia following in the Autumn or possibly earlier, so stay up-to-date with the latest developments on Twitter at @gvcaucasus.

Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի. Yeni İliniz Mübarək. გილოცავთ ახალ წელს. С Новым Годом. Happy New Year.

Armenia-Azerbaijan: Garlic Wars

Onnik Krikorian — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:21:31 +0000

As Armenia and Turkey come to blows over a UNESCO decision to enter a meal eaten in both countries into its list of Intangible Heritage, the dispute over food now appears to have spread to once again include Azerbaijan.

Locked into a bitter stalemate over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, around 25,000 died in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and a million forced to flee their homes. A lasting peace remains elusive.

As a result, Armenians and Azerbaijanis naturally prefer to overlook the many similarities they share, but inter-ethnic rivalry over culture and tradition is perhaps most fiercest over food. Kebabistan sets the scene.

Feeling burned by UNESCO's decision, another group of Armenians is now taking steps to safeguard what they believe to be the Armenian lineage of tolma, stuffed grape leaves or other vegetables, which are frequently also served in Turkey, where they are known as dolma.

[…]

The Azeris, meanwhile, appear even more focussed on protecting their cuisine from what they believe are Armenian efforts to encroach on their culinary territory. Azerbaijan has its own culinary watchdog, an organization called the National Cuisine Center, whose director, Tahir Amiraslanov, appears to spend most of his time on an effort to teach the world that Armenian cuisine is actually Azeri cuisine. […]

Stay tuned. In this food fight, there is clearly more to come.

Arthur Chapman on Flickr

And it wasn't long before more did come, albeit in an unlikely form after one local historian in Armenia reportedly discovered that garlic from Azerbaijan was on sale in his local supermarket. Despite one local trader saying that the garlic was the tastiest as well as cheapest available, some local media responded hysterically.

Tamada Tales explains.

Armenians are constantly on the ball for possible attacks from implacable foe Azerbaijan, but who would have expected an enemy infiltration so unspeakably vile in nature? Garlic, grown on Azerbaijan’s hostile soil, apparently has found a way to penetrate the two countries' sealed border, and then had the effrontery to appear on vegetable stands in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

[…]

A concerned citizen, Karapetian sounded the alarm, and reporters hurried to the scene. “Garlic of the company based on [President Heydar] Aliyev Street in Baku is gleefully sold in… an Armenian supermarket,” the puzzled historian said.

[…]

Apparently, some fear that the garlic could be an early sign of more deadly forms of warfare. Investigators have already whisked off the offending bulbs, but did they act in time before unsuspecting citizens added the Azerbaijani garlic to dolma or khorovatz sauce? Wrote one publication ominously: “Today it’s garlic, tomorrow it will be something else.”

Ironically, however, this isn't the first time that Azerbaijani produce has been available to Armenians. At the end of November, for example, Ianyan blogger and Global Voices author Liana Aghajanian discovered another example in an Armenian Supermarket in the United States.

Unlike the Armenian media, however, her Tumblr blog was more enthusiastic about the unexpected find.

Pomegranate diplomacy: Pomegranate juice, product of Azerbaijan, bought at my local Armenian market that is probably in many Los Angeles-area Armenian homes right now. Also, you can’t see it but the juice brand is called “Real Deal.” Too good.

Meanwhile, in Nagorno Karabakh itself, Armenians still have a fondness for Azerbaijani cuisine while there is also a demand for Armenian products in Azerbaijan too, as one Karabakh journalist explains on the Caucasus Circle of Peace Journalism.

Azerbaijani dishes are still in high demanded at the restaurants of Karabakh. All over the region people speak about the Azerbaijani cuisine with respect. Despite a conflict that is ongoing between the two nations for more than twenty years, in many restaurants patrons can taste typical Azerbaijani dishes alongside the rich offerings of Karabakh cuisne.

[…]

Despite a great choice on offer at stores nowadays, Igor Davtian does not change his habits: he definitely drinks only Azerbaijani tea, which is sent to him by his relatives from Russia.

“I brew tea in a very particular way. I do not trust my wife in this matter at all. She just cannot brew it to the same taste. I order tea and my relatives send it to me from Russia – but they themselves order it from Baku. At the same time, and my relatives told me that their neighbors in Russia are sending Armenian cognac to Baku. What can we do, that’s just what our lives came to,” Igor Davtian says.

[…]

Armenia and Azerbaijan do not only have territorial disputes: there is also much argument about music, patterns of carpet weaving – and surely about the origins of dishes as well. Armenians and Azerbaijanis still discuss who of them came up with the song “Sari Gelin” and who invented tolma. As of the “ethnic origins” of shashlik [GV Note: Barbecue], even Georgians enter the debate. But that is a different story…

With tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan the highest they've been in years, the heated debate over cuisine will likely continue to overshadow any possibility for a sometimes shared culture, or even trade, to bring the two sides together. Certainly that seems to be the case for some media outlets in the region.

Caucasus: Frozen Conflicts, Forgotten Lives?

Onnik Krikorian — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:49:58 +0000

Overshadowed by the conflict in the former Yugoslavia at roughly the same time, the three conflicts waged in the South Caucasus in the early 1990s remain as neglected by the international media as ever. Over a million people were forced to flee their homes as war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, while nearly half that figure were displaced when Georgia lost control over its two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia at roughly the same time.

True, a resurgence in fighting over South Ossetia culminating in the war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008 might have made international headlines, but the plight of refugees and IDPs in the South Caucasus rarely does, once ceasefire agreements are signed.

Meanwhile, in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as the breakaway territories of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, the local media rarely deals with the problems facing refugees and IDP communities unless they can be used to propagandize against the ‘enemy.'

Instead, refugees and IDP issues are generally covered by international development and humanitarian organizations themselves, usually in the interest of raising awareness among donors. Meanwhile, none of the three conflicts show any sign of being resolved in the near future, further casting a shadow over the fate of those displaced by war.

Ethnic Armenian refugee from Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian 1994

However, as new and social media empowers more people in the region, even if only in terms of access to information, some of the voices of the refugees and IDPs themselves can finally be found online. An example of this can be found on iDP Voices, a project supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, and Panos London.

Containing the stories of 29 IDPs from South Ossetia and Abkhazia collected by interviewers and presented in text and audio form, an electronic version in PDF format is also available for download.

When did you last listen to a displaced person and grasp the impact of displacement? Did you ever think what it means to lose close family members in conflict, lose all your belongings and to be uprooted from your place of origin? […] These direct voices have the power to cut through prejudice and political agendas, they speak for themselves.

The focus is on universal human experiences and responses, not specific political issues. By reading what the displaced people themselves want to tell us, we may learn what is important to them and what issues they are particularly concerned about. […] It allows us to glean the reality behind generalised notions of displacement. The stories stand alone with little analysis added – their power lies in their offering of images, a voice, sensations, feelings, hopes and dreams. […]

One such voice is Teah, a 30-year-old Georgian who fled Abkhazia and who says “she dreams of an “ordinary life” for all Georgians and Abkhazians, who must “forgive each other everything.”

[…] I try to speak to both Georgians and Abkhazians. It is impossible to hate each other; we have made enough mistakes without adding that one as well! We should forgive each other and ourselves too. And one more thing: there has to be the will on both sides to achieve more trust and good relations. One party alone cannot solve anything.

I think these borders [between Abkhazia and Georgia] should be opened so that people can communicate with each other. Dialogue comes first, that can lead to trust…

[…] Only after talking about our own tragedies did we truly learn about each other and start to love each other. It took time to trust each other.

It was when we believed that we understood each other’s pain, when this moment came, that we could sit down and talk openly - without aggression, without accusations.

Such narratives told entirely from the first person are rare, however, although there are some exceptions. For example, international donors have funded the airing of refugee issues on local radio stations although these are often short lived, and one young ethnic Azeri refugee wrote two guest entries for own personal project which also forms part of Global Voices' Caucasus Conflict Voices coverage.

The first was written in English before being voluntarily translated into Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian:

[…] I was only four when I left Armenia, but in retrospect I don’t know whether that’s fortunate or not as I am unable to remember everything I left behind. But I do remember our house, our garden, the playground, my friends, my apple tree, and the rooster which I loved so much.

After arriving in Azerbaijan I used to dream about our house and walking in the ruins of our village. At some point, however, everything just faded away. Even so, my family have never lost their belief that one day we will go back home. We believe that two neighbors who have lived together for centuries will come together again even if evil has never left them alone and always whispers hatred.

[…]

In Azerbaijan, we kept ourselves apart from the local culture for many years and couldn’t adjust back to our ethnic roots. Being treated as a stranger made it even more difficult. Azerbaijanis from Armenia segregated themselves from the rest as a result and united among themselves. Discrimination towards us was everywhere. It was in the kindergarten I went to, in the primary school, and even in our social life.

[…]

This war made me a Peacemaker although I am very new in this area. My struggle is more complicated, however, because on the one hand I have to help those who are in conflict, and on the other help myself.

But if most refugees and IDPs are deprived of a voice in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, their stories are at least conveyed from time to time in independent media projects online. One example is a recent blog-based project conducted by the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation (ICCN) and the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI)-Caucasus.

Originally written in Russian, but also translated and available in English, one post co-penned by an Azerbaijani and Georgian journalist offers an insight into the hopes of refugees and IDPs in their own countries:

“Good neighborhood,” I was told by one refugee from the settlement of Dashalti in Nagorno-Karabkah, “this is when the people live not on the ‘other side’ and are divided by a line, but when they live near and next to one another, when they set up family, they visit one another and national identity does not matter in the least. For many centuries it was believed that the land belongs to those who live on it, who work on it. The rest was invented by the politicians. […]

Experience shows us that those who saw with their own eyes sorrow and worry and felt in their own hearts the trouble of their native country will never accept that it is lost. But at the same time they never want to repeat the same horrors, and they never strive for war. All the refugees who talked with us in Azerbaijan want to go back to their small native land and to live peacefully with Armenians.

The sentiment is not peculiar to Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs, and can often be heard from their Armenian counterparts who were also forced to flee during the tit-for-tat expulsions and mutual ethnic cleansing that defined the Karabakh conflict. However, the reach of such narratives remains small given relatively low Internet penetration and usage in the region. Television, the main information source for most citizens, remains particularly off-limits for alternative narratives on conflict.

Even so, videos including the stories of refugees and IDPs, such as these on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict rounded up by Global Voices here and here, are at least available online. Unfortunately, however, what few projects did exist to empower refugees and IDPs themselves through new and social media do not appear to have succeeded. Nevertheless, as Internet penetration increases, the potential is there.

Video Highlights: Identity, Refugees, Conflict and Open Technology

Juliana Rincón Parra — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:33:09 +0000

This section aims to showcase interesting and recent posts in Global Voices that show the many ways in which videos are helping people tell stories all around the world. You can follow the activity by regions in our YouTube channel or by clicking on the regional header links.

East Asia

For our Special Coverage page on Languages and the Internet comes an article about the different languages of East Timor. This next short film shows us the importance of receiving education in the mother tongue and the innovative Education Policy for Multilingual Education that East Timor is adopting.

Sub-Saharan Africa

In the post ‘Mali, Niger: Tuareg Voices Barely Heard Over the Sounds of War ‘, a video amplifies the voices of the Tuareg:

In Kidal, a town in north-eastern Mali, an unofficial number of Tuareg people marched to claim the autonomy of the Azawad region on November 1.

In ‘Kenya: Life in Dadaab, the World's Largest Refugee Camp‘ we look through the eyes of different aid organizations the complexities of life in Dadaab, a refugee camp receiving more than 1,400 people every day:

Central Asia and Caucasus

In Armenia and Azerbaijan, video is being used to improve understanding of the complex issues dividing the people of both nations. We linked to this insightful blog post on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as seen through YouTube videos. It included this next video, which shows an interesting experiment on both sides of the border. In the video, a taxi with a camera records passengers reactions to the taxi driver's musical selection: he plays Azeri music in Armenia and Armenian music in Azerbaijan. The passenger's comments have been captioned in English.

You can visit our Special Coverage page on Caucasus Conflict Voices to learn more about the region's situation. To read more about the role of video in the conflict, visit ‘Armenia-Azerbaijan Dialogue Through Film‘ and its second part, ‘More Armenia-Azerbaijan Dialogue Through Film‘ will provide extra information.

Latin America

Global Voices Author and Lingua Editor in Spanish Juan Arellano has been interviewing different Latin American experts. In this one he spoke with Santiago Hoerth of the Codigo Sur project about open technology and Open Software:

In another interview, he spoke with attorney and Creative Commons regional representative Carolina Botero and asked her to give her opinion on piracy.

Azerbaijan: Dos and Don'ts of local customs

Aygun Janmammadova — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:35:21 +0000

Making Wool from Eggs, a Peace Corps Volunteer blog, puts together a list of random and funny local customs, noting which are approved or disapproved of in the provincial towns and villages of Azerbaijan.

Armenia-Azerbaijan: A microcosm of an unresolved conflict

Onnik Krikorian — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:21:02 +0000

Caspian Intelligence comments on calls by the religious leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to withdraw snipers from the line of contact separating the forces of both countries in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Amid increasing concerns about a new war between the two countries, the blog says that the issue is a microcosm of the unresolved conflict.

Azerbaijan: Toy… Tying the Knot the Azeri Way

Aygun Janmammadova — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:36:38 +0000

Toy is the Azerbaijani word for wedding, one of the most important events for families everywhere. However, in Azerbaijan such importance is placed on marriage that it takes months of planning. Weddings are also a remarkable showcase for the country's colorful traditions and customs, including in the preparations preceding the ceremony itself.

No wonder then, that they are also of great interest to Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) serving in the country. Far From Nome, for example, introduces its readers to the world of Azerbaijani weddings through a series of posts on the subject. The blogger says that weddings in Azerbaijan are nothing like those back home.

Okay guys, dig in because this is a pretty big topic. […] The most important thing to know is that weddings in Azerbaijan, although called weddings, share few similarities with American weddings.

Firstly, weddings are big deals. Actually, they are the deal. […] There is no US equivalent to describe how big a wedding is in Azerbaijan, so it is kind of hard to wrap your head around unless you have lived here.

Last week, I went to a bachelorette party. Amid Turkish traditions and probably some Persian customs, we ate, drank tea, and danced.

In another post, the blogger notes that is never quite as simple as just having one wedding.

[…] So…did you know that the bride and groom have their own weddings?!

Yup. That is right. As a bride, you get two (TWO) parties to celebrate the momentous occasion of marriage. At the girl's wedding (a few days before the boy's), the girl wears a colored dress, enjoys the company of her family, and smiles, a lot. She then goes back home and prepares for the boy's wedding which will happen in a couple of days. […]

The best part about this wedding? I got to MOW DOWN. U.S. wedding food has got nothing on Azerbaijani weddings. We are talking at least 5 courses of salads, meats, kebabs, and special wedding rice pilaf.

A subsequent post compares the groom's wedding with that of the bride.

[…] First, a boy's wedding and a girl's wedding follow the same exact pattern. The only real differences are:

1. The bride wears a white dress with a red sash around her waist; and,
2. The bride does not return to her parents' home after the ceremony.

Otherwise, normally, the boy's wedding is bigger and attended by both sides of the family. Things go pretty normal - about 4 hours (maybe 5 if you are lucky) of dancing, eating, and drinking. […]

After attending several weddings, the blogger concludes that there is more to discover in terms of local tradition.

Now, I have talked about weddings several times , but as I found out last night, not every tradition I have learned is expressed in exactly the same way.

[…]

So, it goes to show that no matter how long I am a PCV, I have barely scratched the surface of Azerbaijani culture. […]

On a more serious note, Life Called by Julie Nelson touches upon the tradition of arranged marriages, but says that this is not always the case.

[…] The regional customs, family rituals, degree of conservativeness or liberalness, and level of affluence or poverty directly affect Azerbaijani weddings and the events leading up to and following the occasion.

Some weddings are arranged, others are somewhat arranged, while there are those marriages where the spouses choose each other without much family interference (although this is not exactly the norm).[…]

It was a classiest Azerbaijani wedding I’ve seen, and I had a lot of fun. I also liked the fact that the bride and groom met randomly and on their own – she is a journalist and interviewed him for an article. […]

In an extensive post accompanied by photos, Making Wool from Eggs, another PCV blog, paints a colorful picture of the engagement party, the symbols used, and of course, traditional dance.

[…] At the engagement party, I believe, the boy and girl are not in the same room. It’s separated by gender (mostly) but it all happens in the same house. This is also where the girl and family and friends do a Henna ritual. They just put henna on their palms. On the girl-to-be-married’s palm they put the boy’s first initial in one hand and the girl’s first initial on the other. The engagement period is also when the dowry is prepared. […]

[…] In this wedding, the girl wears a white dress with a red ribbon around her waist (symbol for virginity). […]

[…]

[…] Azerbaijani’s have their own particular style of dancing. Boys and girls dance with their arms out at shoulder level with some fancy foot movement. Men will have one arm straight out and the other arm bent with their hand behind their head. They switch off with their one arm straight and the other bent. Girls will have both their arms out but a little bent (more dainty) and do a forward roll with their hands. PCVs have described this as “screwing in the light bulb” movement. […]

AzerbaiWHAT? speaks about wedding symbols and also shares her dancing experience.

[…] The bride and groom enter with at least one girl carrying a candle and another carrying a mirror. The candle is to bring light into their marriage and the mirror is very practical but also lets them see what they already possess. Pretty cool. They immediately cut the cake and have their first dance and then they sit.

[…] My first toy dancing seemed to be a success […]. Azeri dancing is ultimately stepping side to side, or step tap step tap. You don't move your hips […]. Very soft flowy movements. If you can't imagine it just sway side to side and delicately pretend to screw in light bulbs.

Photographs of an Azeri wedding in Karajala, Georgia, by Global Voices Caucasus editor Onnik Krikorian.

Armenia-Azerbaijan: Pomegranate Diplomacy

Onnik Krikorian — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:21:16 +0000

The Human Journalist posts a photograph of pomegranate juice from Azerbaijan sold at an Armenian market in Los Angeles. With the two countries still locked in bitter conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the blog calls the culinary find ‘Pomegranate Diplomacy.'

Armenia-Azerbaijan: The Nagorno Karabakh conflict on YouTube

Onnik Krikorian — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:24:22 +0000

The South Caucasus Diary takes a look at how the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is waged by Armenians and Azerbaijanis on YouTube. In particular, the blog notes how the conflict is mainly represented on the video sharing site… and how it could be.

Azerbaijan: Aaron's Last Post

Onnik Krikorian — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:59:33 +0000

Having completed his Peace Corps Volunteer service in Lankaran, Aaron in Azerbaijan reflects on his stay in the country and says a fond farewell to his readers.